McKee's Media - April 22, 2022

 

Articles of Interest to Tenant Advocates

 

 

 

 (Excerpted from Michael McKee's weekly email)

LANDLORDS HOLD APTS OFF MARKET

Matt Troutman: Manhattan landlords hold 50 percent of vacant apartments off the market (YieldPro)
 

GOOD CAUSE EVICTION LAW

Christian Garzone: State lawmakers, tenants push good cause eviction law at Rochester town hall (Rochester First) (VIDEO)
Emily Putnam: Rochester advocates push state legislature to pass good cause eviction bill (WHEC) (VIDEO)

RACE AGAINST RENT HIKE

Ross Barkan: The race against the rent hike; NYC Mayor Eric Adams plans to raise rents (Political Currents)
New York Post: Mayor Eric Adams says landlords need a rent increase

Aaron Ginsburg: NYC Rent Guidelines Board recommends rent increases up to 9 percent for rent-stabilized tenants (6sqft)

The City: NYC rent board staff floats rent hikes between 2.7 and 9 percent in setup to final vote

Michael Gartland: NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams demand Mayor Eric Adams increase funding for housing, homelessness (Daily News)

Washington Post: Rents are rising everywhere. See how much prices are up in your area

EVICTIONS RISING (NOT ENOUGH LAWYERS)

Jennifer Bisram: NYC tenants facing eviction as courts accelerate cases, tenants cannot get free legal help (WPIX) (VIDEO)

Molly Crane-Newman: NYC Housing Court crisis: Shortage of lawyers forces tenants to represent themselves despite Right to Counsel law (Daily News)

Chau Lam: NY City Council Member Shaun Abreu asks Gov. Hochul to save Right to Counsel law (Gothamist)
 

Jennifer White Karp: NYC rental market is bonkers: Manhattan's net effective monthly median rent was $3,644 in March; $2,955 in Brooklyn (Brick Underground)

Alex Love: Cornell study shows link between evictions and crime in Rochester neighborhoods (Rochester First) (VIDEO)

AZCentral: Arizona eviction filings are climbing to pre-pandemic levels. Housing advocates demand change (VIDEO) 

HOMELESS PEOPLE PROTEST/STAY LONGER IN SHELTERS

Jessica Meditz: Ridgewood Tenants Union organizer Raquel Namuche defiant after arrest in police sweep of homeless encampment (Queens Ledger)

Alex Press: On homelessness, Eric Adams has made sadism NYC's official policy (Jacobin)

Mara Gay: On homelessness, Eric Adams needs a little religion (New York Times Opinion)

Chau Lam: Fewer families in NYC shelters, but length of stay has grown (Gothamist)

Sara Dorn: Jumaane Williams proposes homeless bill of rights (City & State)

 

LANDLORDS DOUBLE-DIPPING &  MORE

Suzannah Cavanagh: A.G. Letitia James says landlords who got rent aid are illegally raising rents (The Real Deal)

Patrick Lakamp: As case proceeded without him, landlord sold houses where 29 Buffalo children were lead poisoned (Buffalo News)

REDISTRICTING

Nicholas Fandos: Appellate court rejects new congressional lines, says Democrats engaged in illegal partisan gerrymandering; upholds legislative lines (New York Times)
Nick Reisman: Judge appoints special master to draw new district lines, as appeal process continues (NY State of Politics)

STATE BUDGET

Kathryn Brenzel: Real estate winners and losers, state budget edition (The Real Deal)
City & State: Winners and losers in the state budget

ZERO EMPLOYEES FOR VOUCHER DISCRIMINATION ENFORCEMENT

David Brand: NYC's long-understaffed voucher discrimination unit now has zero employees (City Limits)

SAN FRANCISCO LAW: LANDLORDS MUST BARGAIN WITH TENANT ASSOCIATIONS

Jack Ross: San Francisco ordinance requires landlords to recognize tenant associations, bargain in good faith (Capital and Main/Portside)
 

Stop landlords from creating a false housing shortage

 TONIGHT AT 6:30 PM on Zoom 

 

The management of 50 West 97th Street refuses to offer for rent 9 vacant rent stabilized apartments.  The management is just warehousing them. And that's just one building.

Coincidentally (?!), a group of owners of rent stabilized buildings just offered Gov. Hochul to put 20,000 such apartments back on the market IF the state would roll back some rent protections tenants won in 2019.

So landlords are creating a fake shortage of apartments, and then offering to relieve it if the state will let them double the rents every 5 years by permitting vacancy bonuses again. (In the past, landlords got a 20% increase every time a rent stabilized apartment became vacant. If tenants were harassed out by certain landlords, that could mean a new tenant every year - and that would result in a 100% rent increase after 5 or so years without the landlord even having to slap on a coat of paint.)

Tonight the Coalition to End Apartment Warehousing is hosting a Zoom Town Hall about this issue.  Join us!

6:30 PM.  

Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83569891685

By phone: 646 558 8656 (meeting ID: 83569891685#)

McKee's Media for March 29 and April 1, 2022

EXCERPTED FROM MICHAEL McKEE's 

ARTICLES OF INTEREST TO TENANT ADVOCATES

 

 

REDISTRICTING IN LIMBO

Sara Dorn: Judge rejects new congressional and legislative maps as unconstitutional, orders state legislature to redraw them; legislature to appeal decision (City & State)

SO IS STATE BUDGET

Nick Reisman: State budget in limbo as April 1 deadline will be missed (NY State of Politics)

Zach Williams: As budget deadline looms, progressives turn to activist tactics on state budget (City & State)

Susan Arbetter: The latest on housing issues in NYS budget (Capital Tonight) (VIDEO)

Denis Slattery: Hochul faces backlash on Buffalo Bills stadium deal, bail reform rollbacks as budget talks continue; nine tenant advocates arrested pushing for good cause eviction and against 421-a renewal (Daily News)

Fernando Martínez: (14 arrested in Manhattan protesting 2023 budget for lack of affordable housing support) Arrestan a 14 en Manhattan durante protesta para que se incluyan planes de viviendas asequibles en el presupuesto 2023 (El Diario)

421-A TAX GIVEAWAY

Suzannah Cavanaugh: Housing Rights Initiative generates lawsuits against two more landlords who flouted rent stabilization rules under the 421-a tax giveaway (The Real Deal) 

Eddie Small: Two more landlords accused of violating controversial 421-a tax break law, failed to comply with rent stabilization requirements (Crain's) 

Judith Goldiner, Zellnor Myrie & Linda Rosenthal: The proposed replacement for 421-a is an expensive subsidy for luxury developers (Crain's Opinion)

Matthew Haag & Mihir Zaveri: Will ending the lucrative 421-a tax break ease or fuel the NYC housing crisis? (New York Times) - only 44 deeply affordable apts since 2014!

Chau Lam: As budget deadline looms, fate of a widely-supported housing voucher program is in Hochul's hands (Gothamist)

Ross Barkan: Kathy Hochul's terrible tax giveaway (Political Currents)

RIGHT TO COUNSEL - Swamped

Shant Shahrigian: As evictions pile up, many NYC tenants are not getting lawyers despite right to counsel law (Daily News)